


Wicked Witchcraft

by HereComesAThought



Series: A Love Story, and the Moments in Between [3]
Category: Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
Genre: Angst, Dancing, F/M, Falling In Love, Fluff and Angst, Magic, Romance, Spells & Enchantments, Tortured Vilkas
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-23
Updated: 2020-11-23
Packaged: 2021-03-10 07:36:43
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,357
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27679523
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HereComesAThought/pseuds/HereComesAThought
Summary: "She’s radiant. The sun burns within her, glowing beneath her skin, warming her cheeks red."Try as he might, Vilkas is unable to suppress his feelings for the newest addition to the Companions. He wonders, over a pitcher of ale, what greater powers might be responsible for exhuming his heart from its icy resting place, as only something supernatural could. He resigns to keep his distance, and then, she asks him to dance.NSFW
Relationships: Female Dovahkiin | Dragonborn/Vilkas, Vilkas (Elder Scrolls)/Original Female Character(s)
Series: A Love Story, and the Moments in Between [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1934719
Comments: 6
Kudos: 24





	Wicked Witchcraft

**Author's Note:**

> This was longer than intended, but I had such a lovely time writing it. Another update to the beginning of Vilkas and Ma'assan's tale while I procrastinate editing the next chapter in it lol. NSFW, though, this one! Takes place before Ma'assan takes the blood and becomes a werewolf.

_Why would she wear a dress?_

Vilkas thought to himself as he lounged back in his usual chair at Jorrvaskr’s long table, the dark wood barely visible beneath a mostly-eaten feast of roasted meats, vegetables, and sweets. Mugs frothing with ale decorated the spaces between dishes, Vilkas swilling his own as he watched Ma’assan dance with Inigo and the others to the joyous strumming of lutes and booming of drums at the end of the hall. 

They hadn’t spoken much tonight, or in the last few weeks really - he’d tried his best to make sure of that. Since the night of Tales and Tallows she’d come to him numerous times with well thought out questions about the guild’s history - questions that required time to answer and explain. A strategic decision on her part, he was sure, as the conversations would quickly fall into casual closeness and light teasing between them. He’d managed to stay curt though, and didn’t allow himself to end up alone with her. Now, during the Harvest celebration, he’d _have_ to stay distant. The mood inside was warm and inviting, and all, including her, had been drinking since noon. 

He’d had the chance to witness her drunk on a few occasions, but never partook in order to maintain himself. He’d noticed she was still poised, but unable to mask her emotion as she usually did: Where he would expect to see a quaint smirk, he’d instead be greeted with a full laugh and a hand atop his. In those moments, he felt such incredible lightness, as though every weight had been lifted. He couldn’t imagine what feelings she might inspire should he be drinking. But, today was a celebration - one of his favorites - and tonight, he was on his fifth mug and no longer minded staring so intently. Everyone else had drunk double that by now and wouldn’t be paying him mind enough to notice where his eyes had been the whole time. He’d keep his distance. 

_Did she notice my reaction last she wore one? Could this be some subtle taunt? She never dresses this way...I think myself too important. Surely she didn’t consider me while choosing what to wear, though the thought is quite..enticing...Tonight’s occasion isn’t so special as to warrant a dress like that. The linens are simple and she wears no jewelry, but still, she would draw envy from the High Queen herself._

She had chosen to wear a deep, hunter green dress with a sweeping neckline that revealed her delicate collarbones and wrapped over her proud shoulders, long sleeves that hugged the tone of her slender muscles down to her wrists, a simple fitted bodice that accentuated her narrow waist, and a flowing skirt that draped down to sweep just above the floor. A steep slit cut the left side of the dress up to her thigh, but the fabric billowed so generously that her legs weren’t often revealed. He noticed the subtle flash of skin only a few times, and fought to suppress the stirring reaction it inspired with growing difficulty. It was tailored perfectly to her, and _she_ was perfect in it, twirling and sweeping across the hardwood, a vision of laughter and smiles. 

_She’s radiant. The sun burns within her, glowing beneath her skin, warming her cheeks red._

_...I’ve had too much to drink. I should stop before I lose myself completely._

He gulped another large swallow of ale. He’d grown comfortable and invisible here in his favorite spot. No one had spoken to him, or even looked at him, in some time. So, naturally, his heart near-stopped when she whipped her head around to look right at him and cast one of those smiles his way. He froze, waiting for her to look elsewhere, as he didn’t seem able to tear his eyes away himself. At the unbroken eye contact, the corners of her smile stretched wider and she began to stride over through the rollicking congregation at the center of the room. His heart dropped to hide in his stomach, but he simply sat back and held still the mug in his hand. The alcohol helped him not to betray his nerves as she swayed closer, in step with the percussion, the dress flashing another coveted reveal of golden flesh - just for a moment. His nostrils flared. He’d never seen her bare legs, and they were so close now, barely hidden behind a split curtain. Her smell arrived before she did, soft and damp like fresh blossoms the morning after the rain, with the sweetest salt of sweat. 

This, quite simply, wasn’t fair. The Gods had seen fit, in their infinite humor, to cross his path with hers in an effort to torture and punish him. He wondered if they found amusement in his self-flagellation; denying himself the company of a remarkable woman they themselves had blessed, denying her advances, denying himself happiness. But the intense feelings she evoked wouldn’t be denied: What had been dead within him for a decade would suddenly _refuse_ to be put to rest. He’d been sure it was Divine meddling, but lately he’d begun to suspect it might be something else. 

_Magic. It must be. It’s an enchantment, in her scent...or her eyes - which I can’t look away from. My heart is slamming louder than the damned drums. Every little thing about her intoxicates. Sight, smell, sound, touch...Gods help me if I ever_ **_taste_ ** _her. I would doom us both._

“Dance with me!” she huffed out between breaths, stretching her hand out to the wolf.

_No, I don’t dance. That’s what I’ll tell her, and prove to myself I’m under no bewitchment. I’m a resolute man. If I can endure my beast, surely I can fight a sorceress’ charms._

“I’d be delighted.”

_Fuck._

He put his drink down and stood to take her outstretched hand. Her smile spread into a grin, and mischief flashed in her violet eyes before those fingers sealed one by one around his grip as though some dark contract had been struck. She flew them back to her spot on the dance floor in time for the next song and whirled into place before him, dangerous fun twinkling under hooded lids. He held that solid gaze as the band began to roar again, and deftly threw himself into practiced steps he’d performed many times over. He knew she’d be interested to find he quite enjoyed dancing; it allowed him safe intimacy with interested partners, and cooled his loneliness. Over the years, the steps to all the songs had become light and effortless. Ma’assan was noticing.

He hooked his elbow with hers, and as they spun together to the singing flutes, her eyes widened and flashed down to watch his footwork. A satisfied grin twisted his lips and he couldn’t help but add a bit of flare to each sequential step, which seemed also to please and impress. He pulled her flush to his chest and slid a hand in hers, a musical laugh playing from her lips as they swung round, weaving between other dancers and past stumbling merrymakers. All were a blur behind the image of her; laughing, holding tight, tossing her head back with joy. Her dewy skin glowed luminous shades of blood orange and gold as they swept past the light of fire basins. A few soft strands of silver hair wisped about her face, having freed themselves from the loose plat at her back. Her small body was delicate and hot against his, closer than she’d ever been before. Suddenly, he couldn’t remember why this was a bad idea. 

_This_ **_must_ ** _be magic._

All too soon, the song came to an end. The dance finished with a heavy stomp that shook the foundations of the floor thanks to the number of participants. Howls of laughter and praise rang out through the space, and Ma’assan still held tight to him, panting and smiling from ear to ear. The most unfamiliar pain began to ache his cheeks, and he realized he hadn’t stopped grinning. 

“How did you learn to dance like that?!” She stepped back, gathering his hands in hers.

“Surprised?”

“Yes! I-” In an instant, she was naught but a flash of emerald fabrics fluttering away through the air. 

“C’mon little rabbit! Let _me_ show you how it’s really done!” Farkas hoisted the elf up by her waist, twirling and laughing like a child with a new toy. While Vilkas would ordinarily seethe at his ardent brother for ruining the moment, the moment needed ruining. Farkas unwittingly afforded him with the chance to escape, and as she floated off, his senses floated back. The dance only served to prove he had no control of himself. If he stayed, he would want more. 

He waited with balled fists until Ma’assan and his brother whirled out of sight behind the jostling crowd, then broke for the exit. He tried to be quick, pushing through tight gaps between people, rushing down the steps to the living quarters. He swung through the door, tossed it shut behind him and stared ahead at the wide, empty hallway. 

Silence. The anxious knot that’d been rising up his throat began to ebb as he took in the undisturbed air around him. It was cool and dim, a stark contrast to the bright and humid mead hall. A few decorated tables lined the sides of the room, lit with candles that cast small stretches of flickering light up the curve of the dark stone walls. No dancing. No yelling. _Stillness_ . He enjoyed parties, but he _loved_ the quiet afterwards. The muffled sounds of music and stomping still reverberated from upstairs, but it was a hum compared to before. He sighed and let his rigid muscles relax before beginning to trudge down the long hall towards his room. 

_I shouldn’t have held her like that. I should never have agreed to dance. Why did I? I keep pushing myself. The wolf can wake at any moment. I can’t take chances._

A heavy creaking broke the quiet, and Vilkas stopped. The raucous party noise spilled into the acoustic stone space, then the creak moaned again, and the sound was shut out with the soft closing of the door. He didn’t turn around, he knew who’d entered. The scent of fresh blossoms slipped into the hall as soon as she did.

“Are you leaving the party?”

He suppressed the desire to look at her. He was so close to getting away, he couldn’t turn back now. 

“Yes…”

“We’ve hardly had the chance to speak.”

“I know...Perhaps tomorrow, when we’ve had some rest. I’ve grown tired tonight.”

“After just one dance?” The soft _click_ of her boot heel echoed in the hall as she stepped closer. “You tire so quickly?”

“Never of you,” he whispered. _Why would I say that?_

“Well, I don’t have to leave. I can join you. We can-”

“No.” He stared into the blackness at the end of the hall and listened to the deep, calm breaths she drafted. She didn’t speak for some time. _Click._

“You’re not going to bid me goodnight?” Her voice was _sultry,_ a low hum sweetening the air. He swallowed. 

“Excuse my rudeness...I’m not at my best.”

“I’ve noticed.” More soft footfalls _._ “You’re usually much more adept at cloaking your longing gazes.” Closer. “I’ve caught your eyes all night, studying me like one of your tomes.” The heat of her presence burned over his back, so near, daring him to turn around. He swallowed again, so he could speak. 

“...I like your dress.” 

Her heels began to sound to his left, and he shut his eyes. With each gentle _click_ his throat constricted, until the heat that’d been searing his back came before him. He opened his grey eyes, and peered down his nose to the violet crystals that loved so much to bore into his soul. 

“I thought you might.”

_“Ma’assan…”_

“Yes?”

 _“Have you…”_ Her gentle face twisted up with concern at his hesitant, hushed tone. “ _Am I...under a spell?”_ The concern turned into something else...sadness? Guilt? She exhaled audibly through her nose and cleared her throat. _Amusement_. She was trying not to laugh at him.

“You think I would enchant you?”

“I asked, did I not?”

She grinned. “You did.”

“Well, then?”

“ _No_...I wouldn’t need to do that.” 

He scoffed. “Because you’re perfectly enchanting without magic, I assume?”

“Yes.”

A much heavier click resounded: Vilkas stepped closer, clenching his teeth, drafting deep breaths. He loomed over her, each weighted step forward forcing her to take one back, gaze unbroken - even as she backed into a table. The sweetest gasp slipped from her wine stained lips as she met the edge and stumbled to sit, left leg slipping free from the cut of her dress. His attention was drawn immediately to the show of flesh, and he failed to stifle a low growl. 

_Look at her. Leaned against a table, breasts heaving, cheeks plum, lust painted across her delicate face._ **_Delicious._ **

He reached down between her legs and she gasped again, but he was careful not to touch her, only collecting a handful of fabric gathered there to lift the curtain hiding his innermost desires. At the sight, his grip strangled the soft linen and he pushed out a long breath. No smalls, no slip...just Ma’assan. Her slender thighs pressed together in an unexpected show of modesty, partly obscuring his view, and the intense urge to thrust them back open throbbed in his hands. 

“Is _this_ why you wore this? So that when you finally broke me, all I’d have to do is slide myself between your legs?” He kept the dress lifted, knuckles white around the fabric, unable to peel his gaze from her nakedness. “Is that what you want?” His other hand ghosted over the tops of her thighs, up to her abdomen. Her nerves began to quake beneath the phantom of his touch, and he revelled in being the cause of such tremors. “You’re trembling,” he whispered, eyes finally rising to glare into hers as she so often did him. _“Answer me.”_

_“Yes!”_

“Yes, _what?_ ” He let his index finger fall just beneath her belly button, and began to trace light, slow circles. “Say it. Say what you want.” He crept closer to her parted lips, unconsciously wetting his own, watching her suck in a shaky breath. _“I promise, I will give it to you.”_

“I want _you,”_ she moaned in an airy melody, “between my legs, _now.”_

He was quick to oblige. He threw back the fabric, grabbed both of her thighs, and pulled her up onto the throbbing bulge trapped in his pants, grinding roughly. Her sudden cry returned a shallow echo in the empty hall, the previous stillness replaced by the hushed whispers of trembling sighs and breaths. Her slow, curious hands slid over his chest and shoulders, and the lithe fingers of one slipped into his thick black hair. He tightened his grip and struggled to swallow the moan rising in his throat as he rolled into the molten heat between her legs. She bucked back on him, and the bubbling moan surged out, unable to be quieted. He hovered over her, enjoying the hot sweetness of her labored breath on his face. The fluttering of her dark eyelashes. The look of her soft, pillowy lips, wet with arousal, begging to be kissed. 

_Stop this. Stop this, now. You can still stop this._

Her legs embraced him with such enthusiasm he wondered if she’d heard his flighty thoughts. She pressed closer, rocking her hips with his rhythm, tugging at his hair, tightening the space between their mouths to an inch. 

_...But I don’t want to._

The creaking door exploded open and spat a drunken Companion out onto the floor. Vilkas’ hand flashed to the candle on their table to snuff the flame, cloaking them in relative darkness. The softness of Ma’assan’s fingers pressed firmly over his mouth, and he could see in the dark that she covered hers as well. He held her there, and they watched with bated breath as their shield-brother peeled himself up from the floor, slammed the door closed with a boot, and dragged himself to the group quarters, sloppily humming a song Vilkas couldn’t quite place. 

When he disappeared, the quiet stillness returned, and it seemed a portion of Vilkas’ good sense had with it. Ma’assan went back to rolling her sweet, small hips, but he curtly removed his grip on her legs and forced himself a few steps back. She slipped a whimper that almost made him bolt back to place, but he merely focused his breath and resolve. Her lovely face twisted up in a balanced blend of confusion and hurt. He averted his eyes, staring instead at the fading of light into total darkness on the floor between them. 

“My truest apologies,” he whispered. “I should never have done that.”

“ _No._ No apologies. Just come to me.”

“We’ve both been drinking. We’re not thinking clearly.” 

“No!” She stood up. He took another step back. “We’re thinking just as we should be. No fear, just action.”

“There _should_ be fear.”

“Why?! Why do you fear me?”

He huffed. “You think _I_ fear _you_?”

“Clearly! I just can’t see why!” A soft _click_ forward, a heavy step back. “You _want_ me. You want me so much, you worried I’d enchanted you, but there are no spells, no tricks. Just me, wanting to spend time with you, and you wanting the same.”

“Relations between shield-siblings have always been frowned upon,” he said, surprised at the casual tone he achieved. “Especially by Kodlak. We should respect our guild and our Harbinger, and forgo silly trysts.” He shifted. “No matter how tempting.”

“This isn’t silly.”

“There can be no _this._ Truly...I must retire.” He sighed and turned away, forcing his feet further into the darkness. “...I’m sorry.”

_I can’t breathe. With every step away the noose tightens. I’ll suffocate when she leaves...Why can’t this be magic? If it were, I could find a cure._

“Don’t you want to kiss me?” she asked, her voice low, _smooth_. “Even just once?...No one’s around.” 

He stopped, and every muscle in his body tightened into near cramps as he considered. Broken thoughts flashed about so rapidly across his mind that he could hardly grab hold of one. Stillness in the empty hall. _No one’s around._

“...Goodnight, Ma’assan.”

He retreated into total darkness, then into the safety of his candle lit quarters, and shut the door softly behind him. He rested his back against the solid oak, closed his eyes, and listened for her. There hadn’t been any footsteps, she hadn’t moved. He hoped it was anger that held her there; seething in place at his audacity. Let it be anger, not sadness, or self blame. 

With every deep breath, he was ambushed with her sweet, mouth watering smell. He was covered in it. He tried for calm, but the incessant thrumming of his heart irritated. He wanted a distraction, but she still hadn’t moved. He listened. 

After a while…

_Click…click...click..._

Footsteps, leaving. A loud, slow creaking. The soft closing of a heavy door. 

_I can’t breathe._

He rammed a fist against the door at his back, and pushed himself off of it. Rigid hands snatched a book from one of the many cramped shelves to toss it open at the middle and begin reading. He paced, drew measured breaths, and read, rolling his eyes over the words on the parchment from top to bottom. He didn’t turn the page. He started again at the top, and read to the bottom, then again. He walked back and forth, back and forth, ruminating only on the silky soft skin that’d writhed so enthusiastically beneath his fingers, running them now across the smoothness of the pages. He never turned them. He kicked his boots off and laid in bed in his clothes, in her smell, and read. He fell asleep some hours later, the book draped over his heart, opened to the same page.

  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> My sweet sad Vilkas. I love him. I love her. *sigh*


End file.
